Drug laws look extreme through woman's eyes

Its natural color is brown--the color of her right eye--but because the cornea is "swollen by tiny blisters all over the surface," as her ophthalmologist explained, it appears blue in the light.

Kratovil, 42, says the pain from this condition, an advanced stage of glaucoma resulting from corneal disease first diagnosed when she was 11, is often so sharp and stabbing that it nauseates her. More than three dozen surgeries haven't stopped the suffering, and a medicine chest full of prescription medications have provided only fleeting relief.

The only thing that really helps, she says, is smoking marijuana.

She started doing so at age 19 when a physician hinted that some glaucoma patients find that it dramatically lowers ocular pressure. For many years, then, she bought from small-time drug dealers even as she was marrying, having children and otherwise trying to get on with a normal life despite deteriorating vision in both eyes and the onset of multiple sclerosis.

Two years ago, tired of the risk and expense involved in buying enough pot to smoke as often as every three hours, Kratovil decided to grow her own. But when more than two dozen large plants sprouted in the fenced-in back yard of her family's two-story home in Beach Park north of Waukegan, neighbors called police and Lake County drug agents raided the premises.

Monday morning she goes on trial in Lake County Circuit Court. She's charged with possession of cannabis plants, a Class 3 felony that carries a sentence of up to 5 years in prison

"They're crazy," said Kratovil, who has since moved to Waukegan with her children, ages 15 and 16, and her husband, an auto mechanic. Though she continues to smoke marijuana and said she had done so before I arrived for a visit, the spare, clean surroundings offered no hint of any illegal activity. "Marijuana is just medicine for me," she said. "It's not for fun. It's to get me through the day."

State's Atty. Mike Waller said he will not seek prison time for Kratovil and that he sympathizes with her condition.

"She obviously has a legitimate medical problem," he said. "And if she'd just had a small amount [of marijuana] for medical purposes, I would have dismissed the charges. But she had 25 large plants in her yard. That's more than anybody needs for personal use."

Police said they also found a triple-beam scale of the sort favored by drug dealers, a room lined with aluminum foil and equipped with grow lights, and an assortment of posters celebrating marijuana culture. Kratovil said her plants were of very low quality and intended solely for her own use. She said she never sold marijuana or allowed her children to smoke it.

Prosecutors have offered probation in exchange for a guilty plea on reduced, misdemeanor charges. She has declined, partly, she said, because she feels she did nothing wrong and partly because the terms of probation would not allow her to continue to use what she believes is her best treatment option.

The National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws has been championing Kratovil's cause on behalf of what Illinois chapter director Bryan Brickner estimates are nearly 50,000 Illinois residents who become criminals every time they use marijuana to palliate symptoms of cancer, AIDS, glaucoma and other diseases.

At a pretrial hearing Kratovil's ophthalmologist, Dr. Michael Savitt, testified to the severity of her condition and the clinical effectiveness of marijuana therapy. But he also testified that further surgery and other drug treatment might give her similar or even greater relief, though he said he understood her reluctance to try those routes yet again.

Circuit Judge Mary Schostok cited the available alternatives when denying defense attorney David Stepanich's request to mount a defense based on medical necessity.

Because of that, jurors will see her terrible blue eye Monday but not hear her excruciating history. So the trial will not find an answer to what seems to be the central question:

What is justice for someone whose sad affliction and understandable desperation drew her too deeply into an illegal world?

If sanity and compassion were part of our anti-drug laws, we wouldn't even have to ask.